Mrs. Bascombe gave him a grim smile. “Yes,” she said. “I know.” She darted a quick venomous look at Janelle. “But my Rory is a good boy. He’ll do what I say.”
Doran heaved a sigh of relief. “I knew I could count on you.”
Then Mrs. Bascombe said coolly, “I’m doing this for Jesus. But I’d like a new contract drawn up. I want fifteen percent of your thirty percent as his co-manager.” She paused for a moment. “And my husband needn’t know.”
Doran sighed. “Give me some of that old-time religion all the time,” he said. “I just hope you can swing it.”
– -
Rory’s mama did swing it. Nobody knew how. It was all set. The only one who didn’t like the idea was Janelle. In fact, she was horrified, so horrified she stopped sleeping with Doran, and he considered getting rid of her. Also, Doran had one final problem. Getting a doctor who would cut off a fourteen-year-old kid’s balls. For that was the idea. What was good enough for the old Popes was good enough for Doran.
It was Janelle who blew the whole thing up. They were all gathered in Doran’s apartment. Doran was working out how to screw Mrs. Bascombe out of her co-manager’s fifteen percent, so he wasn’t paying attention. Janelle got up, took Rory by the hand and led him to the bedroom.
Mrs. Bascombe protested, “What are you doing with my boy?”
Janelle said sweetly, “We’ll be right out. I just want to show him something.” Once inside the bedroom she locked the door. Then very firmly she led Rory to the bed, unbuckled his belt, stripped down his trousers and shorts. She put his hand between her legs and his head between her now bare breasts.
In three minutes they were finished, and then the boy surprised Janelle. He pulled on his trousers, forgetting his shorts. He unlocked the bedroom door and flew into the living room. His first punch caught Doran square in the mouth, and then he was throwing punches like a windmill until his father restrained him.
– -
Naked on the bed, Janelle smiled at me. “Doran hates me, even though it’s six years later. I cost him millions of dollars.”
I was smiling too. “So what happened at the trial?”
Janelle shrugged. “We had a civilized judge. He talked to me and the kid in chambers, and then he dismissed the case. He warned the parents and Doran they were subject to prosecution but advised everybody to keep their mouths shut.”
I thought that over. “What did he say to you?”
Janelle smiled again. “He told me that if he were thirty years younger, he’d give anything if I were his girl.”
I sighed. “Jesus, you make everything sound right. But now I want you to answer truthfully. Swear?’
“Swear,” Janelle said.
I paused for a moment, watching her. Then I said, “Did you enjoy fucking that fourteen-year-old kid?”
Janelle didn’t hesitate. “It was terrific,” she said.
“OK,” I said. I was frowning with concentration, and Janelle laughed. She loved these times best when I was really interested in figuring her out. “Let’s see,” I said. “He had curly hair and a great build. Great skin, no pimples yet. Long eyelashes and choirboy virginity. Wow.” I thought a little longer.
“Tell me the truth. You were indignant, but deep down you knew here was your excuse to fuck a fourteen-year-old kid. You couldn’t have done it otherwise, even though that was what you really wanted to do. That the kid turned you on from the beginning. And so you could have it both ways. You saved the kid by fucking him. Great. Right?”
“No,” Janelle said, smiling sweetly.
I sighed again and then laughed. “You’re such a phony.” But I was licked and I knew it. She had performed an unselfish act, she had saved the manhood of a budding boy. That she had a bell of a thrill along the way was, after all, a bonus the virtuous deserved. Down South everybody serves Jesus-in his own way.
And Jesus, I really loved her more.
Chapter 32
Malomar had had a hard day and a special conference with Moses Wartberg and Jeff Wagon. He had fought for Merlyn’s and his movie. Wartberg and Wagon had hated it after he had shown them a first draft. It became the usual argument. They wanted to turn it into schlock, put in more action, coarsen the characters. Malomar stood fast.
“It’s a good script,” he said. “And remember this is just a first draft.”
Wartberg said, “You don’t have to tell us. We know that. We’ve judged it on that basis.”
Malomar said coolly, “You know I'm always interested in your opinions and I weigh them very carefully. But everything you’ve said so far strikes me as irrelevant.”
Wagon said appealingly, with his charming smile, “Malomar, you know we believe in you. That’s why we gave you your original contract. Hell, you have full control over your pictures. But we have to back our judgment with advertising and publicity. Now we’ve let you project a million dollars over budget. That gives us, I think, a moral right to have some say in the final shape of this picture.”
Malomar said, “That was a bullshit budget to begin with and we all knew it and we all admitted it.”
Wartberg said, “You know that in all our contracts, when we go over budget, you start losing your points in the picture. Are you willing to take that risk?”
“Jesus,” Malomar said. “I can’t believe that if this makes a lot of money, you guys would invoke that clause.”
Wartberg gave his shark grin. “We may or may not. That’s the chance you will have to take if you insist on your version of the film.”
Malomar shrugged. “I’ll take that risk,” he said. “And if that’s all you guys have to say, I’ll get back to the cutting room.”
When he left Tri-Culture Studios to be driven back to his lot, Malomar felt drained. He thought of going home and taking a nap, but there was too much work to be done. He wanted to put in at least another five hours. He felt the slight pains in his chest starting again. Those bastards will kill me yet, he thought. And then he suddenly realized that since his heart attack Wartberg and Wagon had been less afraid of him, had argued with him more, had harried him about costs more. Maybe the bastards were trying to kill him.
He sighed. The fucking things he had to put up with, and that fucking Merlyn always bitching about producers and Hollywood and how they all weren’t artists. And here be was risking his life to save Merlyn’s conception of the picture. He felt like calling Merlyn up and making him go to the arena with Wartberg and Wagon to do his own fighting, but he knew that Merlyn would just quit and walk away from the picture. Merlyn didn’t believe as he, Malomar, did. Didn’t have his love for film and what film could do.
Well, the hell with it, Malomar thought. He’d make the picture his way and it would be good and Merlyn would be happy, and when the picture made money, the studio would be happy, and if they tried to take away his percentage because of the over budget, he’d take his production company elsewhere.
As the limousine pulled up to a stop, Malomar felt the elation he’d always felt. The elation of an artist coming to his work knowing that he would fashion something beautiful.
He labored with his film editors for almost seven hours, and when the limousine dropped him at his home, it was nearly midnight. He was so tired he went directly to bed. He almost groaned with weariness. The pains in his chest came and spread to his back, but after a few minutes they went away and he lay there quietly, trying to fall asleep. He was content. He had done a good day’s work. He had fought off the shanks and he bad cut film.
– -
Malomar loved to sit in the cutting room with the editors and the director. He loved to sit in the dark and make decisions on what the tiny flickering images should do and not do. Like God, he gave them a certain kind of soul. If they were “good,” he made them physically beautiful by telling the editor to cut an unflattering image so that a nose was not too bony; a mouth not too mean. He could make a heroine’s eyes more doe like with a better lighted shot, her gestures more graceful and touching. He would not send the good down to despair and defeat. He was more merciful.